Mary Pickford: The Rose-Eating Starlet with a Green Thumb
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
April 8, 1892
On this day, America's sweetheart and Hollywood legend Mary Pickford was born Gladys Marie Smith—a woman who, dear readers, possessed not only a talent for captivating audiences but also a peculiar penchant for consuming flora.
Should you venture onto Twitter and search "Mary Pickford Tree," you shall be rewarded with delightful images of Miss Pickford and her dashing husband, Douglas Fairbanks, planting trees at their appropriately named estate, PickFair. A fitting activity for Arbor Day enthusiasts, wouldn't you agree?
It was none other than our Miss Pickford who earned the distinction of being the first to plant a Japanese cedar in the Forest of Fame at the California Botanic Garden. Such botanical pioneering deserves our recognition!
Now, allow me to share a most curious piece of garden lore that may raise your eyebrows. Miss Pickford was known to consume flowers—particularly roses—believing they would enhance her beauty. And by all accounts, they did!
The talented Katie Melua immortalized this peculiar dietary habit in her song "Mary Pickford," which begins:
"Mary Pickford
Used to eat roses
Thinking they'd make her Beautiful,
and they did-
One supposes."
This is no mere artistic license, I assure you. Miss Pickford herself confessed to this botanical consumption in her autobiography Sunshine and Shadow. As a young girl in Toronto, she would purchase a single rose and consume its petals, convinced that its beauty, color, and fragrance would somehow be absorbed into her being. One wonders if gardeners might take note—though I advise caution before adopting similar practices with your prized blooms.
Miss Pickford's (Books By This Author) horticultural generosity extended beyond self-consumption. She gifted her leading man John Gilbert a bench for his garden—a thoughtful present for moments of contemplation among the greenery.
It was the rose-eating starlet herself who remarked after viewing Charles Chaplin's A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923):
"I do not cry easily when seeing a picture, but after seeing [Charles Chaplin's] A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923) I was all choked up - I wanted to go out in the garden and have it out by myself. Our cook felt the same way."
How fascinating that even in moments of emotional turmoil, Miss Pickford sought solace in the garden—a sentiment with which many of us horticultural enthusiasts can surely identify. Perhaps there is something to be said about communicating with nature when overcome with feelings. Even the cook, it seems, understood this fundamental truth.
So, on this anniversary of Mary Pickford's birth, perhaps we might all consider planting a tree, sitting on a garden bench, or—for the particularly adventurous—sampling a rose petal or two. Though on this last suggestion, I offer no guarantees of increased beauty or Hollywood success.
